Equilibrium
by Anti-Logic
Summary: His footsteps are quiet as he retreats, and Patty hums softly, "It’s okay, it’s okay." Kid, Liz, and Patty.


A/N: Just a little something examining the origins of Kid's team and experimenting with a new style.

I don't own Soul Eater.

**Edit **as of 7/10/09: The first person to spot the glaring error that I later discovered in this fic gets a oneshot request. No lie.

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**I**

The sofas smell like an inner city motel, coated in the dead herbs left on the pillow to cover the scent of unwashed sheets. A guy told me that they do the same thing in real ritzy places, too. I wouldn't know, but I don't think it's true. The way I see it, if a place is classy like that, whoever runs it doesn't need to hide anything.

It's making me jumpy that this kid does.

I sit with my legs crossed and my arms resting on the back real casually, the right one drooping slightly off the other side. The left stays firmly in place above Patty's head. It's a practiced posture.

He sits across from us on the identical couch, confident and mature. It's funny, because earlier today he was practically jumping up and down. Dual guns, he said. Symmetry at last, he sang.

This whole room is starting to give me the creeps. For every piece of furniture, there's another one just like it. Nothing without its twin, like objects in a collection. Are we part of that collection now?

Well, whatever we are, we'll be well paid. Free rent, too. Just take down a few bad guys and we've got a mansion. An obscenely clean, symmetrical mansion, but a mansion nonetheless. Better than the streets. We're tough little girls, but…

_Liz, isn't it? Please, consider your sister._

The words had been electrifying in the dead city air. Kid knows how to make a point. The rules incessantly flying at us from his mouth finally stop, and we go to bed. A new experience for us.

The sheets smell like motel herbs, and another fragrance I cannot place.

**II**

The nail polish I bought matches our new outfits. Patty picked them, of course, but Kid insisted on them being identical. It's really starting to piss me off. I'm not sure I can take this much of the same anymore. He's already attacked us about being different heights. Well too damn bad. Patty's not growing up any faster than I can help it, and I'm not a child.

**III**

If you listen real closely, the needle makes a satisfying little noise as you fill its airtight body with sweet, counterfeit ambrosia.

**IV**

He doesn't knock.

For a moment, he stands almost awkwardly in the threshold.

Your arms, he says. His gaze is dispassionate, his tone dry.

I don't get it until I follow his gaze to the scars.

Yeah, I say, I used to wear sleeves a lot. You mad 'cause Patty doesn't match?

He asks me why she doesn't.

I want to throttle him, and I tell him so. I tell him a lot of other things I'd like to do, but he doesn't even blink.

You wouldn't let her do that to herself, he says, but why do you? How are you supposed to take care of her like that?

His eyes are focused on the points of injection, but not, as I thought before, for aesthetics' sake. Patty laughs at some dumb cartoon down the hall.

**V**

Night tries to smother me as the sheets do a minuet around my shaking frame. The ceiling fan feels more and more like a pendulum axe and I cannot. Get. Out.

I must have called out because Patty is there, and Patty is running her little fingers through my hair and singing her little songs that ring so sweetly through the silence and I shudder and wish that she were anywhere but here.

Because I'm doing this for her. Because that damn Kid knows how to make a point.

I feel her wipe a cloth over my forehead, and the Need is a little less overpowering. It's funny, though, because I know that a washcloth with the Shinigami's insignia on the corner doesn't belong in our room.

His footsteps are quiet as he retreats, and Patty hums it's okay, it's okay.

**VI**

The sound of running feet on the pavement is familiar to me. We fire off one, two, three shots as Kid wields us with an unexpected passion. It's nice like this, I realize, and I feel our souls grow a little less distant. We can't be that far apart, after all, if we're doing so well.

The thing we are chasing drops to the ground, soon to become our first soul.

I'm sure that all three of us are linked, for the moment, by the same childish rush of pride.

**VII**

When Patty opens the door, the front room is in disarray. Books are pulled off of the shelves, pictures piled haphazardly on one of the chairs and spilling onto the floor, like someone had tried to rearrange them and then suddenly realized they had more important things to do. There are two long scuffmarks on the hardwood, and for some reason a chill runs through me as I realize that they are thick, paced painstakingly equally. Like after the first was made, it had to be equalized. Again. And again. And again.

Glass lies on the floor, next to his hunched form. His hands are bleeding a little.

Patty giggles a little in that odd way she has, and I ignore her. I drop my shopping bags and approach slowly. He stares straight down at the pieces of glass, and I realize with horror that there is a vague, pathetic whisper of a pattern in the shards. But the edges are rough and jagged and too many to count. It'll never work, and I tell him so.

But it has to, he says, it has to. I have to. He reaches for the glass again and I stop him.

His eyes are urgent, desperate, yet unlike with the threshold and the threats and the injection scars on my arm, they are unfocused.

Was all this brought on by one clumsy move, a falling vase? How long…? I glance at Patty, but she is at a loss.

I'm no good at this kind of thing, but I put my other hand onto the one I already captured. I think of little songs and fingers through my hair. I think of washcloths and wise words and homes and a little extra scent on our pillows. A hand trembles, but I'm not sure whose.

It's okay, I whisper. It's okay.

And that's the funny thing. I think we're all going to be okay.

He leans down to rest his forehead against our entwined hands.

**VIII**

We sit by one of the two identical fireplaces and sip the hot chocolate. Patty plays with her marshmallows, blowing them across the mug with gusto.

He looks better now, more composed, but still a bit shaken. I get the feeling that attacks that strong aren't everyday occurrences. I wonder how he snapped out of it before we were here to stop him, how long they lasted. The thought scares me a little.

Patty laughs and the hot liquid shakes dangerously in her hands.

My warning comes at the same time as his, and he looks away, face flushed.

It's okay, I say, breaking the sudden silence. To care about us, you know? We're obnoxious, and it grows on you. There's no shame in it.

The answer to his unspoken question I leave between the lines. He smiles like he can't quite help it, and takes a sudden, tongue-scalding gulp that causes his eyes to water. Just in time.

The thing is, I think we care about him, too.

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